I have been on the most major cheese kick lately. I swear to god it's not even funny how much quality cheese I could eat. I'm this close to busting out the Visa for some Cougar Gold...This holiday season, a relative sent over a wheel of Cougar Gold cheese, which is excellent.
They make other kinds as well, which I hope to try sometime. I'd like to compare notes on it, but I don't know anyone else who's had some. Give me a shoutout if you buy some! Edit: What else have you had lately? I ate a pretty good mahon recently and a kind of mediocre idiazabal.
You're in the wrong part of the country, son. Cougar Gold is a Washington tradition. You can buy tins of it at grocery stores from Aberdeen to Yakima. I give the red pepper shit to my dad every christmas, even though he's in New Mexico. When I was an architectural consultant we'd give a wheel to the firms that hired us a lot. It's fair to say that on any given year, 5/10 AIA award-winning firms are eating Cougar Gold.
You know what, I've not kept track of what I've had but I will start. I just basically sample until I find a slice of heaven then I buy it and devour it...then I move on to the next. This is a shame because I've had some awesome cheeses lately...the only one I remember the name of is aged Beemster. Which is ridiculously good, but pretty common.
FUN DATE TRICK FOLLOWS 1) Locate good grocery store. 2) Choose between 2A) Wine department 2B) Cheese counter 3) Ask (a) or (b) to recommend (a) a good bottle for $10-20 (b) three cheeses that contrast well and are delicious 4) Take your selection to 4A) Cheese counter 4B) Wine department and ask them to provide (a) three complimentary cheeses (b) a good wine to go with your selection. 5) Buy some crackers, some fruit, some dates, some chocolate. 6) Spread blanket on carpet 7) cue up netflix 8) COUCH PICNIC My wife and I have been having couch picnics for more than ten years now. The "decent grocery store" is good for expanding horizons but even Kroger will do in a pinch.
You really don't need more than that. My wife and I sometimes do entire dinners this way. A good bottle of wine, some great cheeses, a fresh loaf of good crusty bread, some nuts, fresh fruit, and dried meat, and maybe some hummus. The chocolate you mentioned is pretty clutch too. A lot of people don't realize how amazingly complimentary some good dark chocolate is on a plate like that. A meal fit for a king afaik. The specialty grocer near me has a sommelier and a great cheese selection, but now I'm spoiled because my sister's girlfriend owns a wine store. Every time I babysit for them she goes down to the basement and hands me something from her private collection. I honestly don't even possess the wine vocabulary to appreciate what I'm drinking.
It's been a while but "couch picnics" were a regular part of our life for many years. I need to reintroduce that. Until my wife went vegetarian we'd have charcuterie in there too and often champagne, then wine. -So much fun.
If you do, I think kleinbl00 and humanodon would internet slap me if I didn't recommend some HUMANODON SAUCE to accompany it.
Yeah, I always use all fresh ingredients except for a can or two of peeled to do some heavy lifting for me. I once made a sauce where the base was all fresh farmers market heirloom tomatoes and it was fucking nuts. But mostly I can't be bothered to go to those lengths. Pasta is a "convenience meal" for me because it's so easy to make by just throwing together a few mostly fresh ingredients (plus wine). Using non-canned tomatoes pushes it just out of reach for me most nights.
Gonna jump in here because we are pretty wild about cheese in my family and as such in my home too. Every christmas eve my father goes to a fantastic cheese/charcuterie store in Ann Arbor called Morgan and York and my brother, dad and I all chip in and buy a bunch of artisinal cheeses and meats. It's a ton of fun because we get to taste our way through their selection and we're pretty picky about what makes the cut. This year they had an awesome triple-cream that I wish I remembered the name of. Also, the Taleggio was fantastic -one of my favorite types of cheese. In our house, year round we almost always have Saint Andre around because... well, it rules. What are your staples?
Huh. I've never been there, -I always just go to Zingerman's if I'm in Ann Arbor. I'll have to check it out. I do most of the shopping at my house since I do most of the cooking, and I usually focus on stables. It's funny because I'll buy a 20lb bag of rice for 12 bucks, a 5lb bag of potatoes for 2 bucks, and a bunch of other staples of meals that serve as a good base for a lot of stuff. Then I'll get like, $40 worth of cheeses WTF. I've heard you can save money by not eating out, but cheese always screws me up I swear.